Up close this mushroom was nicely formed and colored. But how odd to see the “stem” come from the ground and climb up a tree. The stem had some dried plant material an inch or so in length attached to it. I tried removing this debris, but it was firmly adhered. As if it had been attached to the tree bark at some point, but broke off. Every few inches on what seemed to be a tough stem there was a mushroom, at […]
Most of these Peperomias are from the Cordillera del Condor, (what a surprise!), but a few are from other parts of Ecuador. Unfortunately I did not realize my camera battery was in backwards (!) for a few hours of walking in the Condor, so I did not get photographs of the multiple, very distinctive clones of Peperomia tovariana that resided within a very small range, but suffice it to say their markings were very striking! These are mostly slightly larger, […]
So here was the dilemma. While in the Cordillera del Condor, we decided to go hiking one night to look for treefrogs and glassfrogs. We had one good flashlight, one decent headlamp, and one headlamp whose only usefulness was to find the other two real lights in a dark backpack. The group consisted of an eager treefrog enthusiast with really good eyes for spotting things, an amazing local guide that seemed to be able to spot even the tiniest things, […]
Categories: Blog, insitu • Tags: Cordillera del Condor, Ecuador, moss, sporangium
In the Rio Blanco area of the Cordillera del Condor, there is a nice assortment of Pilea species, not unlike many other areas in Ecuador. In the past, a handful of nice species were available to the terrarium hobbyist. But mostly they have been under-rated and poorly represented. Especially when compared against their diversity and abundance in their native places. Here are just a few photos of different species occurring in a small area.
Categories: Blog, insitu, Plant Photo Library • Tags: Cordillera del Condor, Ecuador, Pilea, rio blanco
A stretch of road that should have taken an hour to drive is easily stretched out to multiples of that with a plant-lover in the car. To make it worse we had 2 plant-lovers in the car, each with a view of the opposite sides of the road. The happy conversations of the road is replaced with the silence of concentration scattered with the phrases “What was that?!”, “Wait, back up a little” and my favorite “Stop, stop, stop!” Even […]
Categories: Blog, insitu, Plant Photo Library
By the garden gate today I noticed a conglomerate of baby spiders, probably hundreds of them, all just hatched and resting in one small web. Perhaps some of our entomologist friends can help confirm an ID, but their most distinctive feature is serrated black markings on their bottoms, with an otherwise pale yellow and brown body. They look similar to European Garden Spiders. Here is the web from afar, the whole thing is probably no more than 4 inches across at […]
